Tonga PM dis­misses blank­ing me­dia claims

Nuku’alofa: The prime min­is­ter of Tonga, Ak­il­isi Po­hiva, has re­jected crit­i­cism that he and his gov­ern­ment are not mak­ing them­selves avail­able to the me­dia. Lo­cal news or­gan­i­sa­tions have been grum­bling for weeks about a lack of ac­ces­si­bil­ity and a long time as­so­ci­ate of Mr Po­hiva, jour­nal­ist and pub­lisher Kalafi Moala, said the Demo­cratic Party gov­ern­ment was the most closed in the coun­try’s his­tory. But Mr Po­hiva said that was not the case.